Disturbance Estimation for a STOL Transport During Landing

Abstract

Transport aircraft can experience dangerously high sink rates if wind shear or thrust loss are encountered during landing approach. This is of special concern for STOL aircraft that use engine thrust for lift augmentation. Such conditions must be detected quickly and available power increased promptly to avoid serious flight path deviations. This study demonstrates the feasibility of designing constant-gain estimators, which use on-board instrumentation, to detect such conditions with sufficient speed and accuracy to provide adequate warning. Estimator design techniques are discussed and simulation results presented.